The Choir Invisible

Fight it out here, he felt that he never could. He could neither live near

her and not see her, nor see her and not betray the truth. His whole life

had been a protest against the concealment either of his genuine dislikes or

his genuine affections. How closely he had come to the tragedy of a

confession, she to the tragedy of an understanding, the day before! Her

deathly pallor had haunted him ever since--that look of having suffered a

terrible wound. Perhaps she understood already.

Then let her understand! Then at least he could go away better satisfied: if

he never came back, she would know: every year of that long separation, her

mind would be bearing him the pardoning companionship that every woman must

yield the man who has loved her, and still loves her, wrongfully and

hopelessly: of itself that knowledge would be a great deal to him during all

those years.

Struggle against it as he would, the purpose was steadily gaining ground

within him to see her and if she did not now know everything then to tell

her the truth. The consequences would be a tragedy, but might it not be a

tragedy of another kind? For there were darker moments when he probed

strange recesses of life for him in the possibility that his confession

might open up a like confession from her. He had once believed Amy to be

true when she was untrue. Might he not be deceived here? Might she not

appear true, but in reality be untrue? If he were successfully concealing

his love from her, might she not be successfully concealing her love from

him? And if they found each other out, what then?

At such moments all through him like an alarm bell sounded her warning: "The

only things that need trouble us very much are not the things it is right to

conquer but the things it is wrong to conquer. If you ever conquer anything

in yourself that is right, that will be a real trouble for you as long as

you live--and for me!"

Had she meant this? But whatever mood was uppermost, of one thing he now

felt assured: that the sight of her made his silence more difficult. He had

fancied that her mere presence, her purity, her constancy, her loftiness of

nature would rebuke and rescue him from the evil in himself: it had only

stamped upon this the consciousness of reality. He had never even realized

until he saw her the last time how beautiful she was; the change in himself

had opened his eyes to this; and her greater tenderness toward him in their

talk of his departure, her dependence on his friendship, her coming

loneliness, the sense of a tragedy in her life--all these sweet half-mute

appeals to sympathy and affection had rioted in his memory every moment

since.